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Mayor de Blasio Says He Will Not Apologize to NYPD

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday he would not apologize to police union leaders and rank and file cops, despite calls from some top officials for the Democratic mayor to be contrite in the wake of a glaring rift between the NYPD and City Hall.

"I respect the question but the construct is about the past and I just don’t want to do that. I think this is about moving forward," Mr. de Blasio told reporters when asked about whether he’d consider apologizing to the police.

"I’ve always tried to tell the truth as I know it and I tried to be respectful and if you look at years of what I’ve said about the NYPD, I have immense respect for the men and women of the NYPD. I believe in them and I’ve obviously directed a lot of resources to helping them do their work and be safe," he added.

Mr. de Blasio and two of the city’s most prominent police unions, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and Sergeants Benevolent Association, have been at war for much of his tenure as mayor. Patrick Lynch, the PBA president, blamed Mr. de Blasio for creating an atmosphere that led a mentally unstable 28-year-old man to murder two NYPD officers in December.

Police unions and their conservative backers revile Mr. de Blasio for tolerating the anti-police brutality protests that roiled the city after a Staten Island grand jury voted not to indict a white police officer in the death of Eric Garner, a black man. On the night the decision was announced, Mr. de Blasio repeated a mantra of the protest movement, "black lives matter," and said he warned his biracial son about interacting with police. Many in the NYPD recoiled at those remarks, the New York Observer reports.

Scanner audio captured an officer’s account of what happened at the scene, CWBChicago reports: “Ten people surrounded me, indicating that they had firearms. And one person pulled him away from me, holding his waist, indicating that he would use a firearm against me.”

There were so many police officers, sheriff’s deputies and Highway Patrol troopers that the court appearance had to be moved out of Justice Court to Judge John Larson’s Courtroom Number Three on the third floor of the Missoula County Courthouse.

The vehicle pursuit ended in the town of Kittitas where Deputy Thompson was backed up by Officer Benito Chavez. The suspect exited the vehicle and exchanged shots with the two law enforcement officers.

Sarah Wilson and her boyfriend were arrested during a stop in Chesapeake after officers allegedly found drugs in the 1996 Lexus the couple were driving. Police said they handcuffed Wilson and, while attempting to apprehend her boyfriend, 27-year-old Holden Medlin, he became combative and ran away from the scene.